Orbivirus

Part of speech: noun

Definitions

1. Any virus belonging to a group of arboviruses spread between hosts by biting insects such as mosquitoes and ticks
2. A member of a genus of RNA viruses that are carried by arthropod vectors and can infect animals and sometimes people
3. A type of arthropod-borne virus within the Reoviridae family, typically transmitted to vertebrates through the bites of blood-feeding insects

Etymology: Orbivirus is a technical coinage, and its history is a matter of naming a group rather than a story about a word drifting in meaning. It is formed from "orbi-", the combining form of the Latin "orbis" meaning "circle" or "ring," which is used in the naming of the genus, and "virus," the familiar Latin word for poison that came to mean a disease-causing agent. The genus name itself was built from these parts to describe a group of viruses, and the English term simply takes the genus name and turns it into a common noun for any member of that group. The members of this group are arboviruses, transmitted to vertebrate hosts by biting insects such as midges, mosquitoes and ticks. Their name is a modern scientific construction, so it should not be read as something ancient Romans or Greeks would have recognised. The Latin roots supply the vocabulary, but the combination belongs to twentieth-century virology, when taxonomists needed systematic names for newly characterised groups.